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Warli Paintings
General
The Warli paintings reflect the relaxed lives of the Warli tribe and include scenes from hunting, harvesting, people chatting, cooking food, milking cows etc. The “tree of life” and the “Tarpa dance” are significant images that are often seen in Warli art.
History
While the exact origins of this art are not recorded, its roots can be traced to as early as the 10th century AD. Warli paintings were embellished on the walls of village houses and the people used them as an expression of the daily and social events of the Warli tribe.
In her book, 'The Painted World of the Warlis', Yashodhara Dalmia claimed that the Warli carry on a tradition stretching back to 2500 or 3000 BC. Their mural paintings are similar to those done between 500 and 10,000 BC in the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, in Madhya Pradesh.
These paintings were traditionally done by the women until the late 1970s when Jivya Soma Mashe began to paint and his paintings caught the fancy of the urban world.
Rarity
The Warli or Varli are an Indian Scheduled Tribe and are found on the northern outskirts of Mumbai, in Western India and nearly 300,000 warli tribals reside in the Thane district. These indigenous people live in talukas of the Thane, Nasik, and Dhule districts of Maharashtra, the Valsad District of Gujarat, and the Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu union territories.
Despite living in such close proximity to Mumbai (the financial centre in India) Warli tribesmen shun all influences of modern urbanization. They have their own beliefs, life and customs which have little in common with Hinduism. The Warlis speak an unwritten Varli language mingling Sanskrit, Marathi and Gujarati words. These paintings are the only means of transmitting folklore in a community that is not acquainted with the written word. The word Warli is derived from Waral, meaning "piece of land" or "field". Warli Art was first discovered only in the early seventies, when Jivya Soma Mashe started to paint, not for any special ritual, but on an everyday basis.
Process, Talent & Skills needed
The paintings follow a rudimentary technique. The ritual paintings are usually done inside the huts. The walls are made of a mixture of branches, earth and cow dung, making a red ochre background for the wall paintings. The Warli use only white for their paintings. Their white pigment is a mixture of rice paste and water with gum as a binding. They use a bamboo stick chewed at the end to make it as supple as a paintbrush. The wall paintings are done only for special occasions such as weddings or harvests.
Materials used, durability
These paintings are done on an austere mud base. The white color used predominantly in these paintings is made from rice.
Aesthetics
This art form is similar to the pre-historic cave paintings in its execution. These extremely rudimentary paintings use a very basic graphic vocabulary: a circle, a triangle and a square. The circle and triangle come from their observation of nature, the circle representing the sun and the moon, the triangle derived from mountains and pointed trees. Only the square seems to obey a different logic and seems to be a human invention, indicating a sacred enclosure or a piece of land. So the central motive in each ritual painting is the square, the cauk or caukat (pronounced "chauk" or "chaukat"); inside it we find Palaghata, the mother goddess, symbolizing fertility. Significantly, male gods are unusual among the Warli and are frequently related to spirits which have taken human shape. The central motif in these ritual paintings is surrounded by scenes portraying hunting, fishing and farming, festivals and dances, trees and animals. Human and animal bodies are represented by two triangles joined at the tip; the upper triangle depicts the trunk and the lower triangle the pelvis. Their precarious equilibrium symbolizes the balance of the universe, and of the couple, and has the practical and amusing advantage of animating the bodies.
The Warli paintings reflect the relaxed lives of the Warli tribe and include scenes from hunting, harvesting, people chatting, cooking food, milking cows etc. The “tree of life” and the “Tarpa dance” are significant images that are often seen in Warli art.
History
While the exact origins of this art are not recorded, its roots can be traced to as early as the 10th century AD. Warli paintings were embellished on the walls of village houses and the people used them as an expression of the daily and social events of the Warli tribe.
In her book, 'The Painted World of the Warlis', Yashodhara Dalmia claimed that the Warli carry on a tradition stretching back to 2500 or 3000 BC. Their mural paintings are similar to those done between 500 and 10,000 BC in the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, in Madhya Pradesh.
These paintings were traditionally done by the women until the late 1970s when Jivya Soma Mashe began to paint and his paintings caught the fancy of the urban world.
Rarity
The Warli or Varli are an Indian Scheduled Tribe and are found on the northern outskirts of Mumbai, in Western India and nearly 300,000 warli tribals reside in the Thane district. These indigenous people live in talukas of the Thane, Nasik, and Dhule districts of Maharashtra, the Valsad District of Gujarat, and the Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu union territories.
Despite living in such close proximity to Mumbai (the financial centre in India) Warli tribesmen shun all influences of modern urbanization. They have their own beliefs, life and customs which have little in common with Hinduism. The Warlis speak an unwritten Varli language mingling Sanskrit, Marathi and Gujarati words. These paintings are the only means of transmitting folklore in a community that is not acquainted with the written word. The word Warli is derived from Waral, meaning "piece of land" or "field". Warli Art was first discovered only in the early seventies, when Jivya Soma Mashe started to paint, not for any special ritual, but on an everyday basis.
Process, Talent & Skills needed
The paintings follow a rudimentary technique. The ritual paintings are usually done inside the huts. The walls are made of a mixture of branches, earth and cow dung, making a red ochre background for the wall paintings. The Warli use only white for their paintings. Their white pigment is a mixture of rice paste and water with gum as a binding. They use a bamboo stick chewed at the end to make it as supple as a paintbrush. The wall paintings are done only for special occasions such as weddings or harvests.
Materials used, durability
These paintings are done on an austere mud base. The white color used predominantly in these paintings is made from rice.
Aesthetics
This art form is similar to the pre-historic cave paintings in its execution. These extremely rudimentary paintings use a very basic graphic vocabulary: a circle, a triangle and a square. The circle and triangle come from their observation of nature, the circle representing the sun and the moon, the triangle derived from mountains and pointed trees. Only the square seems to obey a different logic and seems to be a human invention, indicating a sacred enclosure or a piece of land. So the central motive in each ritual painting is the square, the cauk or caukat (pronounced "chauk" or "chaukat"); inside it we find Palaghata, the mother goddess, symbolizing fertility. Significantly, male gods are unusual among the Warli and are frequently related to spirits which have taken human shape. The central motif in these ritual paintings is surrounded by scenes portraying hunting, fishing and farming, festivals and dances, trees and animals. Human and animal bodies are represented by two triangles joined at the tip; the upper triangle depicts the trunk and the lower triangle the pelvis. Their precarious equilibrium symbolizes the balance of the universe, and of the couple, and has the practical and amusing advantage of animating the bodies.
